Reviews catch-up!

March 27th, 2013 Kami

Hey hey, I’m still here.

Right, I have been playing lots of games lately so for the remainder of this week, unless something earth-shatteringly amazing happens (Square-Enix’s troubles not withstanding, because frankly any company not making money from 3.4 million sales of a game in less than a month needs a kick in the crotch!), I’ll be taking the time to get some reviews up. The first is The Walking Dead: Survival Instinct, and there’s a proper shocker in there as well. Quite a worrying one at that. Anyway, I also have Resident Evil 6. Or rather, the PC Version of Resident Evil 6 which I think deserves its own review. And then I have Monster Hunter 3 Ultimate to review as well. So that should tide me off until the weekend! Hooray!

It’s nice to have a glut of games to play, as next week it’ll be Luigi’s Mansion 2 and BioShock Infinite. It’s worrying to me that I sort of forgot this was the month many games were put back to before Christmas, and yeah, I sort of didn’t realise that it would end up this busy. But I like that sort of busy.

Right, okay, a few words on Square Enix. As I said, any company that puts out a decent game like Tomb Raider, one that sells 3.4 million units in a month, and can’t make money from it is frankly scarily incompetent. There’s no wording to describe how unbelievable that scenario is; but obviously, it’s a scenario that is happening right now. Tomb Raider “did not meet expectations”? Pull the other one, it wasn’t an amazing game so for what it is (a Lara murder simulator in my mind…) 3.4 million sales is beyond the dreams of Everest. If they expected more sales, then that is their problem, not ours. We did our bit buying it in our droves. Most games would kill for that kind of sell-through. Which makes it all the more remarkable – and troubling – that Square-Enix don’t seem to be making any money from it. There’s a leak somewhere; money is going missing. Rather than blame the market by saying they expected more sales (when we all know that 3.4 million in a month and in an economic climate like this is simply amazing!), they need to look inward. They obviously are, but by spending nearly $100 million on restructuring the company?! Talk about an overreaction.

Simply put, if Square-Enix are stupid enough to have spent so much on Tomb Raider that 3.4 million sales in a month isn’t enough, then that’s their problem. I feel no sympathy for a company so incapable of balancing its books that a runaway hit like Tomb Raider can’t make them money. We, as gamers, have nothing to be ashamed about and should not take any responsibility for any problems Square-Enix are having. This is their hole. Let them dig out of it themselves.

Also, Easter weekend! YAY! I don’t know if I’ll have company on Monday (since I had company today!), so I’ll automate something over the weekend for it. It might be on the Square-Enix thing. I’m not sure yet. But I’ll write something.